Stories Before Sept 2016

Ratings challenged WPIX in New York is making a big Anchor shake up, that includes moving one main News Anchor to Sports.

The station is bringing back John Muller from ABC News to co-anchor the station’s 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts, where he will be reunited with Tamsen Fadal.

Fadal’s current co-anchor, Scott Stanford, will become the station’s lead sports anchor as Ch. 11 makes a move to increase its sports coverage.

Muller left WPIX in 2011 for ABC News, where he’s anchored “World News Now” and “America This Morning” while also serving as a fill-in news reader on “Good Morning America” and as an ABC News correspondent.

Muller’s return to WPIX is targeted for Monday, June 23 — the same day Stanford moves to the sports desk.

“I sat down and thought about how crazy my life has been — 15 of the last 17 years I’ve been working the early mornings or overnights,” Muller says. “To be the main anchor in prime time … and the prestige that comes with it, that’s clearly my priority.

“ABC was wonderful and I will forever be grateful that I saw the network. It was everything I wanted,” he says. “It would be fair to say that leaving ABC … is something I will probably think about every day of my life.

“And on the heels of that, without a doubt, I need to get more than four-and-a-half hours of sleep a night. It’s a win/win on both fronts.”

“I knew John from his earlier stints and was a fan of his overnight work at ABC and the stars aligned,” says Mark Effron, VP/news director of WPIX. “This is also happening at a time when we’re playing much more aggressively in sports, and with Scott heading up our revitalized sports effort … to have someone with his ability to be our front person on that … we’re very excited.”